California politics got a shot in the arm last Wednesday with the ruling from a federal court in San Francisco striking down Proposition 8, the 2008 voter initiative making gay marriages unavailable in the state. In a controversial ruling, Judge Vaughn Walker held that “gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals.” The decision was met with wild cheers by supporters of same-sex marriage, but others saw Walker rejecting “the will of the people” and overturning “a family structure that historically (and biologically) best serves children.”

It’s a decision likely to be appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court. But the ruling was greeted reluctantly on the campaign trail, where the candidates for California governor and U.S. Senate are treading carefully on a hot-button issue likely to inflame passions at the grassroots.

In the governor’s race, Attorney General Jerry Brown hailed the decision as “great news” on Twitter, and he called on his Facebook fans to fly rainbow flags in solidarity. And as the state’s highest law enforcement official, Brown urged Judge Walker to rescind the ruling’s stay of implementation so that same-sex marriages could resume immediately. But the press office for Republican Meg Whitman, Brown’s billionaire rival for the governor’s mansion, just quietly released a statement affirming that “the candidate supports Proposition 8.” In the Senate race, incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer put out a press release praising the decision as “a step forward in the march toward equal rights.” Meanwhile, GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina dismissed the court’s ruling and said simply that the voters had “spoken clearly” at the ballot box.

And that, in a nutshell, is the most exciting debate we’ve had at the top of the ticket since the California primaries wrapped up in June. It’s too bad, too, since one or two more 7.2 magnitude earthquakes may plunge the once-Golden State into the Pacific.

As is always the case, California is once again deadlocked in a budget stalemate with the deficit now sitting at about $20 billion and growing. Budgets are supposed to be submitted in June and signed into law by the governor. But that never happens, year after year. The state runs essentially on autopilot, borrowing until it runs out of money, and then some new gimmicks are cooked up to keep the house of cards standing until the next year. The Great Recession has put a massive crimp on that method, of course, and the quantity and quality of public services across the state has suffered. Unfortunately, neither candidate Jerry Brown nor Meg Whitman has said much about this. The pre-Labor Day months are the downtime anyway, but this year’s campaign would be a groaner even without the epic silence on the most pressing issues to Californians.

Meg Whitman, for example, has already spent roughly $100 million and she’s still struggling to find a coherent message. Especially rough going has been her disastrous flip-flopping on immigration. Having at one time called for a compassionate approach to the issue, she switched to a hawkish stance in the primary, ultimately defeating challenger Steve Poizner who had eroded her numbers with a tough-on-borders platform.

Now, though, Whitman’s being hammered by Latino activists for her clumsy efforts at Hispanic outreach. Whitman’s grand opening of a campaign office in East Los Angeles was greeted by a storm of angry protesters. And during an interview on the John and Ken Show, Whitman defended her immigration position by saying she would “stand with Arizona” in its battle to defend its tough new SB 1070 legislation.

23 Comments, 15 Threads

1.
Judy

I am wondering why we Conservatives who voted ‘yes’ on Prop 8 and then had our vote over-turned by a homosexual activist judge, can’t file suit against the voters who voted for obama. He is a socialist who is void of any American values and has on many different ocassions violated our Constitution. Two homosexual couples brought the suit against 71 million California voters. Why can’t we millions of Conservatives file suit against the left wing and void the obama/biden vote on the facts that those who voted for that ticket violated our (Conservatives) rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because of the socialist/marxist policies of obama?

If we were to void their vote, then all of the policies, appointments, laws and decrees signed by the usurper would be voided. We could hold another election that produce a real American for the office of president and vice president.

It seems popular these days for left wing judges to throw out voters decisions. So why not in the case of a presidential election? Why not?

Poor Judy. Read over what you wrote and maybe, just maybe, you might see what a crack pot lunatic you sound like. “Homosexual activist judge,” blah, blah, blah. You guys are becoming so predictable. Let’s be clear, however, what an activist judge is for someone like you. An activist judge is any judge who would dare to hand down a decision that you don’t like. Our political leaders, as imperfect as they are, take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, something you obviously have no clue whatsoever about.

In case you want to know about the Constitution and how it relates to the Prop. 8 decision I would suggest you watch this clip from your favorite station, Fox News. Chris Wallace interviews Ted Olson on the case.

Maybe morbid fascination? Kind of like driving by a car wreck with bloody victims and carnage on the road. You don’t want to look but you do. Well, that’s kind of how I think of the commenters on PJM. They are political carnage. You shouldn’t really look at them but you do. And for some strange reason you get a thrill out of it.

I felt Meg Whitman actually ran a coherent, pointed campaign regarding unions and state worker salaries and pensions. OF course, there’s no incentive to play the moderate there, because the public’s anger toward big government (the city of Bell fiasco is just the latest) is at an all time high.

At the end of the day, Brown is pro amnesty, and he’s as beholden to union interest as Obama is. Even “John and Ken” recognizes that it was Brown who allowed for union bargaining rights.

Amnesty will never happen under either Brown or Whitman, unless they wish for a career suicide. Knowing this, I’ll vote for Whitman trusting her business background. I’m not expecting a return of Reagan.

Proposition Gay was forced upon us while we were busy guarding the front door, forgetting that thieves will often go to the back door knowing that it is overlooked and not as strongly held. To make the word marriage “gender neutral” they had to introduce same-sex unions into the definition as a secondary meaning following the root man and woman, husband and wife.

After accomplishing the mission of introducing the secondary definition, they are in a better position to claim that giving secondary status to homosexuals is unconstitutional. In the psyche of the population, due in much part to their good-will, the homosexual community has been allowed to claim something that was never theirs, and that is the word marriage. If one would research when the homo-sexual unions were introduced as a “type” of marriage, it began in the early part of this decade. Those who assumed that marriage was defined as the union of a man and women would be surprised when consulting a dictionary that a “new” kind of marriage had been introduced; men with men, and women with women.

In order to complete the redefinition and transform the word marriage from gender specific to gender neutral, it must be done through the judicial system who is attempting to force the legislative branch to accept their assertion that marriage must be transformed to “gender neutral” in order to satisfy the constitutions demand for equality. In the social realm they are attacking the rest of the population by insinuating that anyone who does not want the word marriage redefined is a bigot, racist, phobic etc. We rear back in alarm as if there is something wrong with defending the word and the relatioship that is defines.

We should not become confused about this issue, and let the harsh economic environment distract the majority from what is occurring in our civilization. The homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, gender neutral community is not necessarily looking for equal rights, protections, and responsibilities afforded to husbands and wives. They have made it clear that the only step that will appease them is if men and women agree that the institution of marriage, the union of man and woman who become husband and wife, must be redefined because they want it to be redefined and whoa to those who disagree. They demand that we accept the union of a man and woman be a “type” of marriage not what defines the word.

This is tyranny in my opinion, and the fact that the voters had to introduce a Proposition to affirm the definition of marriage is outrageous and does not bode well for those that know it has served the nations well these many thousands of years. The relationship between a man and a woman has always been under attack, and now there is a concerted attempt to negate it, taking away the very words that define it.

Any candidate brave enough to face this issue head on would be very brave indeed, and would not stand a very good change against the forces who through tyranny will get their way without a thought to those who are crushed by their corruption of power.

No there isn’t. Attacking the Constitution has become a popular activity of teabaggers. Judges are there to interpret the Constitution. The will of the people ends where it is conflict with the Constitution and the rights that it enumerates. There will be a winner and loser in this battle. I can tell you the Constitution will win.

We had an opportunity to turn this mess around in 2003 by electing Tom McClintock, governor BUT Californians were enamored by the celebrity of RINOld…well 7 years later, just as I predicted in 2003, you can’t be a “fiscal conservative & a social liberal” at the same time…ya gotta pay for all those social programs somehow. Well, RINOld has proven that he isn’t even a “fiscal conservative”. Heck, RINOld, even after seven years, has yet to find the “line-item-veto-pen” in the top drawer of his desk.

Well Meg Whitman is just RINOld in a skirt. And we’ve had Liberal-Lite for the past 7 years. So it looks like it will be another four years no matter who is elected governor before CA can elect a true-blue-conservative governor. Where is Ronald Reagan when we need him most. New Jersey, can we borrow your governor for 4 years? 8 would even be better!

While ridding the state of me, the terrible Gray (“Is there a Union I haven’t paid off?”) Davis, Arnold was elected. Arnold gave Californians a choice: he put four Propositions on the ballot: they would have limited the power of unions, capped some spending and so on. The unions spent almost $100 million oppssing the Propositions. The LA Times opposed them. The unions had TV ads showing the nice fictional wife of a fictional cop asking “Why does Gov Schwarzzeneger want to take away my pension?”

This was all before the state’s budget went super critical.

The “better people” opposed the Propositions. They all lost. Why? well, the economy was OK then; the basis for the implosion was there but it hadn’t manifested yet.

Lots of voters were led astray by the LA Times and other newspapers whose reporters and editorial writers fancy themselves informed. They were actually so out of it they betrayed California. They neevr gave the voters a fair sumamry of the Propositions. Overwhelmed by the onslaught, the voters blinked. The chance for a solvent state went down with them.

Arnold tried. The voters failed.

And if you think things would have been better with me, I want what you’re smoking.

If I just weren’t so anti-Democratic, anti-progressive, and anti-liberal, I’d agree. Giving the Molden State to the completely to the Dem’s -as if Arnold Dem-by-injection were actually a Republican – would have the same effect that Obamugabe has had, i.e. galvanizing Conservatives.
OBTW, it’s “You’re (you are)”.

Ms. Whitman is no Governor Christie. Mr. Poizner could have been been but Whitman just flatout out-spent him in the primary. Neither had great name recognition going into the primary but Whitman was able to buy that.

So far, her campaign has been less than inspiring. Her strategy MAY be to let Brown make a fool of himself and to use his historical foolishness against him. His long record in California offers ample opportunity for self-damning statements.

Still, I was hoping to hear a bit more thunder and lightning from our Republican candidate. Plus, we need solid ideas and those have been sketchy.

A federal court has overruled the majority vote in the country’s largest state, and politicians of both parties are dancing around the intrusion. Just as Congressional candidates nationwide are dancing around a fiscal mess which is terrible now with far worse in store.

What the bleep are elections for, anyway?

These are indications that America is not yet serious about its problems–assuming we are still capable of seriousness. (Many individual Americans are serious patriotic adults, but many are not. The country as a whole…?)

Meg wouldn’t be a bad choice. Although she is a fiscal moderate, she is a very strong pro-abortion rights Republican. Pro-choice women can feel safe that Meg will not compromise or restrict abortion rights in any way.

The jury’s outrageous nullification of the evidence in the OJ Simpson case was nothing compared last week’s judicial nullification of the evidence in the Prop 8 case.

District Court Judge Vaughan R. Walker threw out thousands of years of tradition and overruled 7,oo1,084 good citizens and voters of the State of California at the same time he labelled them as irrational, hateful cowards.

In finding for the plaintiffs in the now-famous same-sex, homosexual marriage case Perry v. Schwarzenegger–the matter of Proposition 8– he didn’t quite use those words, opting instead for the more judicious language of irrational “fear” and “animus,” which amount to the same thing.

In a very revealing sentence from his decision quoted in a CNS article by Terence P. Jeffrey, he also said, “The evidence did not show any historical purpose for excluding same-sex couples from marriage . . . Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed:” http://tiny.cc/hxnxs

Judge Walker thereby does not perceive “any historical purpose” for society to reserve marriage to those capable of procreation. His twisted decision is virtually palpable: Try the very perpetuation of a society, Judge Vaughn!

Furthermore, his usage of the words “artifact” the time for which had “passed” reveals the judge to be an incredibly supercilious individual who somehow felt empowered to take unto himself the right to toss out ancient precedent as nothing more significant than an old shoe and to proclaim that we are now living in his version of the astrological Age of Aquarius because the time had arrived for homosexuals in A.D. 2010.

All my life I have been a registered independent, but have consistently voted “conservative,” and almost always, “republican.” I’ve never voted a straight ticket, but always research each candidate. In 2008 I did not vote for Obama or McCain, but wrote in a conservative candidate, and did this for the first time in my 30+ years of voting. I know this contributed to Obama winning the election, and a liberal senator being elected in our state, but the result is a resurgence of conservatism nationwide. But I am alarmed that moral conservatives are being ignored.

If the Tea Party movement and conservatism does not ardently and vocally support pro-family, pro-life, pro-morality in media, and the right of a nation to defend its own people and borders, I care little for the movement. We have to have the cojones to totally reverse the moral agenda of the liberal left, and return to moral sanity in our nation or these “amoral conservatives” cannot count on my vote. I’m tired of being “played” by fiscal and defense conservatives who neglect the moral agenda that is even more important, and who then expect me to vote for their candidates because they are “the lesser of two evils.”

The people got it right on Prop 8 and the judge got it wrong, and wrote his decision to play to Justice Kennedy. It would be entirely proper to impeach him, and appropriate for Californians to impeach their attorney general and governor due to their unwillingness to support their own constitution in court.

No, the people got it wrong on Prop.8. And it wasn’t just a bit wrong it was unconstitutional. That’s a big deal. It is a smack down of the highest degree. You have been smacked down and you will stay there because the Constitution is bigger than you and any of the teabaggers combined. The right of the people to vote on an issue ends where that vote is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution. State constitutions are subservient to the federal Constitution. We fought a war over that a long, long time ago and your side lost. Get over it. Be an American or get the hell out.

Also, how far did you make it through school? You can’t impeach a federal judge. The mechanism for doing so doesn’t exist. Moral conservatives have a right to what they want to believe but they need to mind their own business as to what other believe and how they choose to live their life.

Advertisers know that certain key words attract attention. One of those words is “FREE!” since everyone loves a freebie.

Under the auspices of President Gotrocks, who shovels money out of the United States Treasury as if it were worth nothing, which it soon may be, Uncle Sam has become the very generous old uncle who used to throw quarters or a dollar bill our way when we were kids. The primary difference between Obama and that old unc is that Obama doesn’t toss his own bucks around, he dispenses the taxpayers’ bucks.

Barack Hussein Obama, having now joined the heady ranks of the newly rich himself thanks to his book sales, like others in that nouveau riche classless class such as the Clintons, has no respect for hard-earned money, especially when it’s not his.

Bailouts on top of bailouts, stimuli on top of stimuli, with government bureaucrats handing out stimulus funds as if it were candy, as if it were Marie Antoinette doling out cake to the bourgeosie and hoi polloi, as if it is a useful tool to purchase votes, have caused an unprecedented explosion of American greed.

The scourge of Islamo-fascism is a worldwide problem. I am happy to see that the Tea Party movement understands this threat and in some respects is leading the fight against the totalitarian idealogical system that is Islam. As a gay person, I am terrified and horrified by Islam and all forms of Islamic appeasement. But as a gay person how am I supposed to feel if gay people are constantly attacked on such forums? The LGBT community could be a valuable and loyal ally in the war against Islamic totalitarianism – why not befriend the community instead of passing judgement on it?

Sensible Republicans should seriously reconsider – don’t force the LGBT community into becoming stooges of the loony liberals – please – we should be on the same side.